Paradise strip club near Fox River Mall in Grand Chute goes up for auction, could close

Days of Fox Cities' controversial landmark may be numbered

Oct. 23, 2013

The Paradise Club on W. Wisconsin Avenue near Fox River Mall in Grand Chute, Wis. / Sharon Cekada/Post-Crescent Media

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GRAND CHUTE — The end of the Paradise Club, a longtime Fox Cities strip joint, could be near.

It was listed on the Micoley.com real estate auction site Monday, signaling the potential closure of the decades-old entertainment site.

The club will go under the auctioneer’s virtual gavel Dec. 14 with a suggested opening bid of $650,000, Post-Crescent Media has learned. The list price is $975,000 for the 2,476-square-foot club, built in 1940, and its lot that’s just shy of one acre at 4201 W. Wisconsin Ave.

The business is still open and operating. It’s highly visible on Wisconsin Avenue adjacent to the northern edge of the Fox River Mall property and west of IHOP.

While the strip club may have been a thorn in the neighboring Fox River Mall’s side in the early days, the two have co-existed for nearly 30 years with little interaction.

“They’re innocuous. Our clientele don’t cross paths. They operate late at night. We operate during the day,” said John Burgland, senior general manager of the mall.

He said he doesn’t know if the mall’s parent company, General Growth Properties, is interested in purchasing the strip club’s property.

“It’s something we’re evaluating, but we’ve made no definite decision on what we’re going to do,” he said.

A future buyer would be unable to operate The Paradise Club as is because of a town ordinance put in place in July that prohibits adult entertainment at any establishment with a liquor license. It is the town’s lone tavern offering adult entertainment and in July it fell under a grandfather clause that allowed it to operate without change.

But if the club’s parent company, RAH Enterprises Inc., sells more than 50 percent of the real estate or the legal entity holding the license, “they would lose their grandfathered exception at that time,” said Grand Chute Police Chief Greg Peterson.

The auction house simply lists it as a commercial property “as is, where is,” with no mention of a liquor license.

The Paradise Club is also part of a seven-property July foreclosure judgment that will turn all properties over to a bank in late January if they are not sold by then.

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State online court records show Russell A. Hassell Sr. had a mortgage foreclosure judgment against him at the end of July for The Paradise Club and six other properties, including the Rustic Inn at 1930 W. Wisconsin Ave. (now closed), American Motor Inn at 1032 S. Westland Drive in Grand Chute, the Landmark Lounge in Oshkosh and three residential properties in Menasha and Ogdensberg.

The property’s owner is listed in Outagamie County records as the Hassell Living Trust. RAH Enterprises operates the club.

The Paradise Club was the only one of the trust’s three Grand Chute properties that had its liquor license renewed July 1. All three properties had delinquent taxes, but a portion of the club’s taxes were paid to keep its license.

All seven properties are now listed on the auction site, said Rick Roundy, an agent at Micoley.com. “Any offer we have is contingent upon bank approval. We will need their blessing.”

“The bank doesn’t own the properties yet,” said Fidelity National Bank’s attorney, Bob Duimstra. “It would first have to go to sheriff sale, which can’t take place less than six months from the date the judgment is entered. That would be sometime in late January.”

He said the six-month window allows the owner to sell them independently, but so far that has not happened.

“The trust never received any written offers,” said Duimstra. “I don’t know if there are any pending offers. There’s certainly nothing that the bank knows about.”

He didn’t know the minimum offer the bank would approve for The Paradise Club.

“The blanket mortgage covers all of the seven properties. From the bank’s perspective, they’re trying to get fair market value. The bank is in the process of obtaining appraisal information for all of them,” said Duimstra.

Micoley.com was contracted by the trust to sell the property as is, and agents are allowed to show the property prior to 2 p.m. — when the club opens each day.